Agile 2011 wrap-up, Atlassian Bonfire & GreenHopper Highlights

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Last week, several Atlassians made the trek out to Salt Lake City, Utah for the Agile 2011 conference. Fresh on the heels of the Atlassian Bonfire 1.0 release, we met tons of excited customers hoping to see a demo and chat with Edwin Wong, Product Manager, about the product itself and the lessons Atlassian has learned about testing in an agile environment. Edwin also gave a lightning talk to a packed room on making the most of manual testing in a quality focused Agile team.

Drink-Up

My favorite part of the week was the drink-up at nearby Sapa Bar & Grill. Instead of the standard t-shirt or other chotchkie giveaway, in true Atlassian style, we brought custom Agile 2011 beer glasses to the booth, and gave them away with invitations to our happy hour meet up!

Test Sessions

Andrew Prentice, Atlassian QA manager, wrote a great post about using test sessions for planning, executing and tracking manual testing. In the post, Andrew details how we’ve learned that test sessions provide a stronger connection between testing and test objectives, reduce the time spent on test planning and documentation, and improve flexibility and responsiveness – which ultimately leads to better software.

Agile Planning

Agile testing of course comes after the planning and the development! Covering that end was Nick Muldoon, our GreenHopper Product Manager. Nick enjoyed conversations with excited customers and shared some ‘sneak peek’ previews of what the GreenHopper team has been working on: the Rapid Board.

In case you missed us at Summit 2011, the Rapid Board is being built alongside the existing four boards in GreenHopper (Planning, Task, Chart, Released). The Rapid Board will be the new ground for ranking, scheduling and transitioning issues across multiple projects.

The Rapid Board has been available for a short time now in GreenHopper Labs, and we’re excited to get your feedback. Check out the video demo to see what Nick was showing off at the booth!

For those who made it, what was your favorite part of the week? And for those who missed out – Agile 2011 was a great show with awesome talks, fun parties, and hallway conversations about real world lessons and agile development practices. We hope to see you at a drink-up or conference booth soon!